10 Steps Techies Should Take to Keep Their Jobs in a Financial Meltdown

As the economy gets shakier each day, workers everywhere are concerned about losing their jobs. Here are 10 steps the corporate techie toiling away in the server room or the help desk can take to help keep his or her job.

OK, the stock market is falling like a rock. Big banks are being bought
and sold like overripe bananas. The masters of the financial universe
are looking like suckers at the horse race track buying tip sheets
printed after each race. And now, even the venture capitalists of
Silicon Valley are telling their captive companies to skip the party,
tighten the belt and get yourself sold.

So, with all the highly educated financers showing that they have
no clothes, what is the corporate techie toiling away in the server
room or the help desk supposed to do to keep a job and pay the
mortgage? Here's my 10-step program.

1. Heads Up!
Don't think that just because you are doing a really good job at
your one task that you can avoid the corporate grim reaper. You really
need to understand not just your little corner of the IT world, but all
the technology tools that keep your company running. The more you know
about all the parts of the machine, the more valuable you become as the
company looks for utility players rather than specialists.
2. Take a Hike

That's right, get outside of your cubicle and spend some time
visiting other parts of not just your company's technology universe,
but also the business brains. This is not easy, but after your first
small forays, you will be surprised in just what regard the company
holds the techies. You'll learn the language of business and soon find
yourself in the ambassador-at-large role, able to form your own
opinions about what tech projects are seen as valuable outside the
world of the techie cubes.
3. Make Friends
This is foreign territory for lots of techies. It is a lot easier to
deal with your computer than a real person. But unless you want to see
that e-mail that puts you on the goodbye list, you need to build some
sources in the company who can give you an early storm warning. Without
access to the corporate radar, you will be flying blind. Become the
unofficial computer help desk, and you will soon have the chance to
make lots of new friends.
4. Lose Friends
You are trying to keep your job, right? You know how much corporate
time is being taken up with fantasy leagues, Web surfing, non-business
e-mail, IMing, YouTubing, etc. Someone is going to drop the dime to the
higher-ups on the huge waste of time taking place as employees run eBay
stores and exchange photos of the party the night before. Might as well
be you.
5. Protect the Boss's Wallet
Make one of your corporate walkabouts after hours. How many
terminals are still glowing, printers are running and computers are
sitting idle? Take a good guess at how much power is being wasted and
let the boss know. Pick another simple target: printer supplies and
costs. All those printers add up to a lot of supplies and paper being
wasted. Wade through all those software license agreements to find out
exactly what your company is paying for. You can become not only the
boss's favorite cost cutter, but you can fashion yourself as an eco
champion as well.
6. Watch the Cloud
It used to be really difficult to learn a new application or
programming environment. You had to get access to a system and attend a
class or certification seminar somewhere, and, after all that, you were
never quite sure your new knowledge could stand the corporate computing
environment test. Now, you have a computing cloud you can tap into.
Take some time to understand Google's corporate offerings,
Salesforce.com and Amazon's cloud. The corporate cloud is one of the
hot topics these days, and you need to be the one who can explain why
or why not the cloud is right for your company.
7. Keep the Boss Happy
How many times has the mystery of why one corporate geek keeps his
or her job when the layoff scythe is swinging been solved by figuring
out who really is the one that the boss uses to keep his or her system
running? Who makes sure the boss has the latest laptop or makes sure
the boss's BlackBerry is always up to date and tied into corporate
apps? And who is the one whom the boss uses to keep the family
computers running and is the one who acts as the help desk for the
boss's college kids? Enough said.
8. Tune Up the Old Engine
In downturns, companies hang onto their old servers and network
equipment far longer than the equipment's warranties. Someone has to be
the person who knows the ins and outs of the sputtering server, the
dying disk drives and the flaky network router. It should be you they
call when the system conks out.
9. Kill an App
Somewhere, maybe many somewheres, there are apps running on servers
in your company that haven't been needed in years. No one knows who
created those apps, who used those apps or why they are still running.
Killing an app means you can usually kill a couple of servers, save
some money in the server room, free up resources and generally look
like someone who knows what's going on. Good for you.
10. Pull a Plug
Keep track of the servers you take offline, the printers you turn to
off instead of putting on idle, the computers you shut down instead of
putting on standby. Those acts alone will put you in the green
cost-saving category. Now, take on the bigger task of sitting down with
the bean counters and HVAC and figure out how much that data center is
costing each month. You find out this information and you have the keys
to the castle.

Since 1996, Eric Lundquist has been Editor in Chief of eWEEK, which includes domestic, international and online editions. As eWEEK's EIC, Lundquist oversees a staff of nearly 40 editors, reporters and Labs analysts covering product, services and companies in the high-technology community. He is a frequent speaker at industry gatherings and user events and sits on numerous advisory boards. Eric writes the popular weekly column, 'Up Front,' and he is a confidant of eWEEK's Spencer F. Katt gossip columnist.